


Blue (Running Up That Hill)

by eruriotica (minxiebutt)



Series: Blue [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asphyxiation, Cigarettes, Codependency, Domestic Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Manipulation, Mild Sexual Content, Miscarriage, Miscarriage due to domestic violence, Nipple Piercings, Piercings, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Tattoos, Unhealthy Relationships, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-15 03:39:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19287370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/eruriotica
Summary: He can't replace Erwin with her.





	Blue (Running Up That Hill)

**Author's Note:**

> hey, rough road ahead. read those tags one more time and make sure you're good with what you see. take it slow and read with caution. close the tab if you need to.
> 
> and if you wanna listen, listen to the meg myers cover.

His head is pounding.

Still only half-conscious, Levi goes to rub his temples, opening his eyes when his wrists are jerked back down. The first thing he sees is Nana, curled up in an olive green recliner in the corner. When did they get that? The room is wrong, he can tell even in the dim light, and slowly, he registers that it’s because it’s not his apartment. He’s in a hospital room.

Levi groans and leans back against the inclined bed. He survived. Fuck.

He remembers it now. Nana finding him on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, clutching a dish towel to his opened arm. He remembers her crying over him, and not much else from that night. But the morning is a clear memory. Packed bags and years’ worth of a relationship ripped away from him.

Looking down at his wrists, Levi is not really that surprised to see them restrained to the bed railing. His left forearm is heavily bandaged, an IV running into the basilic above it.

“God damn it,” he mutters, angry. He didn’t ask to be saved.

 

He’s supposed to sit through therapy and counseling but fuck that shit. He’s got work to do. He’s got a business to keep afloat without another tattoo artist there to help. Still, he has to close up shop to recover, because he’s woozy when he stays on his feet for too long.

Nanaba keeps her distance but he can still feel her breathing down his fucking neck, smothering him, trying to take care of him. He didn’t ask her to. He doesn’t want her to. He thinks about kicking her out but he needs someone there to help with the rent.

 

Levi gets himself out of the hospital as soon as possible. Nana escorts him home. Seems that since she saved his life, the doctors task her with keeping Levi alive and he wants to spit on all of them for that.

He wants to pretend he still can’t remember how that night went down.

But what he said hangs tied between him and Nana like a lead weight, dragging them down into the ocean floor. He can’t take it back and in a deeper part of himself, he doesn’t want to take it back because it’s keeping her here with him instead of letting her abandon him, too.

They both know he remembers. She had been so scared when she found him, and he’d been bleeding out when he saw a blur of blonde hair and blue eyes. He’d seen blue and he’d been lost in it, asking for a goodnight kiss, thinking it the final goodnight. Levi remembers her peppering him as she followed the instructions of the emergency operator, applying pressure to his arm.

“Stay,” he remembers pleading. Hazy, life seeping away. He wanted to hold onto something and have it hold on back. “Don’t ever leave me.”

“I’ll stay,” he remembers her promising. “I won’t go.”

He remembers that she kept him conscious until help arrived. He remembers being separated from her as he was loaded in an ambulance, begging for her to ride with him before he fell into the dark.

They won’t talk about it. Sometimes, Levi finds it in her eyes when their gazes meet, and she looks away, finding a way to fuss over him, a nagging fucking mother hen.

 

On the week anniversary, Levi finally gets down to the shop and takes on two tattoos before he’s seeing triple and calls Nana to come get him back. He’s not supposed to be smoking, but he waits on the curb out front, too tired to stand. Erwin was the one with the car, so now neither of them drive anymore, and he sees her running up the street to get to him. Cigarette smoke is a lighthouse beacon.

Tossing his uninjured arm over her shoulders, she bares most of his weight and guides him back to the apartment. By the time they get up the stairs, he’s barely hanging on. He can hear himself babbling about the rent, about the fact that he’s already been out of work too long and if he misses as much time as his body wants, they’re gonna be homeless. The whole time, she shushes him and tells him it’s okay, and fuck, he’s too tired to even be angry.

“Hold on,” she says, sitting him on the sofa. “I washed your sheets, let me make your bed.”

Levi doesn’t know how long it takes her because he passes out for a little while, coming back to the surface when she gently coaxes him up again. She leads him to his room and sits him on his bed, proceeds to undress him and tuck him in, and fuck, he’s tired and he’s so tired of feeling lonely in this bed.

“Don’t go, Nana. Stay,” he begs, the scary black edges of his vision closing in.

“I’ll stay.” And she climbs in, spooning him, soothing him.

 

He’s not supposed to smoke in the apartment but fuck it, he’s too tired to get dressed and stand on the balcony. Beside him, Nana snores. He holds the end of his cigarette below her nose like a smelling salt and she startles awake.

First question out of her mouth is, “Are you okay?”

Levi brings it back to his lips, chuckles, humoured. “Yeah. Sure.”

She blinks up at him and there it is again, that night hanging between them and dragging them down together like a three-legged race with cement shoes. It’s too early for either of them to be guarded enough to break the trance, even when Levi blows out a lungful of smoke. They’re looking at each other and looking deep.

“Hey,” and he takes a long drag, letting it out through his nose so he can say, “Kiss me.”

She rolls over to where he’s laying and leans in, pausing as he exhales, and then she rises up to find his mouth. Levi watches her through the chaste affection. When she pulls back and opens her eyes, he turns to drown out the fag in the glass of water he’d been tapping his ashes into. Both hands free, he takes her by the neck and pulls her in for a proper kiss, forcing her to taste him first thing in the morning with tobacco still heavily coating him. It brings him a small pleasure to watch her face scrunch up as she lets his tongue swipe the roof of her mouth but she doesn’t yank away.

Even though she hates cigarettes, she lets him kiss her like that for a while, her expression eventually smoothing out into a reasonable level of enjoyment. She shudders when he breaks them apart to deliver a kiss to her forehead.

 

Levi doesn’t think about it again until later when he goes down to pay the rent and the clerk informs him politely that his roommate already did so.

 

When she gets back from work that night, he greets her with, “You were supposed to be saving up for your own place.”

Caught, she doesn’t deny or defend herself. Nanaba kicks her work shoes off and hangs her bag on the hook on the back of the door. She doesn’t reply at all, so Levi snaps, “Did you _fucking_ hear me?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think it mattered anymore,” she murmurs. Slinking into her room, she doesn’t look at him.

Levi gives her half an hour and when she doesn’t show her face in that time, he knocks on her door. Not that he needs to knock. It’s his fucking apartment after all. But she bought potted flowers and put them on the balcony to cheer him up so maybe it could be _their_ apartment like it had become his and Erwin’s apartment. She said she would stay.

Nana answers with pink puffy eyes and she’s such a pitiful bitch sometimes, Levi can’t help but want to fuck with her a little bit, but he won’t. Not right now, at least, because it’s something she didn’t have to do, paying the rent in full when before they were doing it split between three incomes.

“Thank you,” is all he says.

She smiles. “It’s okay.”

They’re looking at each other again, not too long before Levi motions with his chin and invites her to his bed. “I’m not used to being alone yet. You aren’t so bad to sleep next to.”

 

One more week of rest and his body bounces back; he’s back to working full time like no problem. The stitches dissolve and reveal a nasty scar that runs from the tattoo of a blue wing on his wrist and halfway down his forearm. He pretends he can’t feel people looking at it.

Nanaba comes to his bed but only if he asks, and he’s getting tired of asking. There’s something growing in the looks they share, something morphing and evolving that neither of them want to address but it’s an elephant in the room, so on the day she doesn’t have to work, Levi asks her to come to the shop and be his guinea pig.

“I’ve got a piercing license but I’m outta practice.” _Erwin usually did that._ Levi swallows, taps the glass top, and points down into the display. “Pick something for your nipples.”

“You’re going to pierce my… my,” Nana bites her lip, “nipples?”

Levi rolls his eyes. “Are you gonna pick something or not?”

Cowed easily, she settles on the most basic jewellry. The whole time, she’s more preoccupied with him seeing her tits than with him deciding to _use_ her body like that, and he’s not going to deny how good that submission feels. Levi gets it done, taking his time reacquainting with the tools, and sends her on her way.

It’s already into the evening when she texts him about the discomfort, to which he tells her to have a drink and stop being such a pussy. He’s got business, he can’t be coddling her over this shit. He finishes up his night with one last appointment, closing down the shop since it’s a weeknight and he’s never really liked doing drunk tattoos.

When he comes into the apartment to find his dinner set aside as usual and Nanaba probably already in her bed, Levi sighs. He goes out to the balcony to smoke. Comes back in to eat. Smokes again. Still, no signs of life. So he showers and then knocks on her door, intent on having her wrapped around him like he’s getting used to, when he hears quietly from his room, “I’m in here.”

He climbs into his bed and finds her, reverses their roles for one night and spoons her instead. Finally, a night where he didn’t have to ask. He refuses to acknowledge his relief in that.

 

Something warm presses into his groin and Levi moans, rutting his hips up in search of friction. He finds it, grinds it, humming. Coming up from a deep sleep, Levi realises that there’s someone held in his arms so he lets one hand slide down to cockwarm, only remembering _Nana_ is in his bed when he finds a cunt instead. But he hasn’t been fucked since a long time before Erwin left and he just wants to get off so he decides that she’ll do.

“Wake up,” he mutters, pinching the skin over her pubic bone. In his arms, she jerks, obedient. He doesn’t waste any time before pressing his middle finger inside of her, relishing the way she gasps and then exhales with a moan.

“Levi,” she sighs sleepily, pushing down on his morning wood like she wants more.

“I’m gonna fuck you,” he whispers into her ear.

“Please,” she breathes, one of her hands sliding over his to press him deeper inside. He puts her on her back easily and she’s all needy hands on him, needy mouth begging for his kisses, and _fuck,_ he forgot how good it can feel to put his dick inside something for a change. She’s such a slut, whining and wet for him, spreading her legs wider for him, he’s so overcome that he wants to strangle her _so he does,_ and with his hands around her throat she cums and when she cums, so does he.

 

It’s the nudge that begins the fall of all the dominos; they fall into one another like it’s a genuine thing, like they’re both needy for each other, like they want each other equally. Bitterly, Levi thinks he’ll never get over Erwin, but at least with Nanaba there beside him, he can fake it until he makes it or just fucking die trying.

  
  
  


“Levi.”

He ignores her for a few minutes, choosing to keep his focus on what he’s doing. Usually, she takes the hint and fucks off, but not today. When she can tell he is ignoring her, she calls again, “Levi.”

 _“What?”_ He snaps, irritation always hovering below the surface.

“I’m late.” Nana pulls her lips between her teeth, shifting her weight uncomfortably.

“So?”

Her face scrunches up like he’s mocked her, and at her side, her hands ball into fists. “I’m late,” she repeats. Clarifies, “My period is late.”

All the world around him stops for a moment as what she said seeps through his skull and the lightbulb goes off. Whatever shows on his face frightens her further, because she takes a step back. They’ve been fucking for less than a month. How the fuck...?

“Don’t you have birth control?” He asks, skeptical. Is she manipulating him, afraid he’ll kick her out now that the man who convinced Levi to let her move in has gone?

Nanaba shakes her head, tucks her chin to her chest. It takes three deep breaths before he can say anything without shouting.

“You couldn’t’ve said _something?”_ He’s been fucking her without condoms this whole time, because she didn’t ask him to use one, and he was assuming that she had one of those fancy implanted contraceptives that he sees commercials for and that every woman seems to have.

“I never... had... _sex_ before. I didn’t think it would happen,” she whispers, bringing her arms to cross over her chest. Levi can’t deal with this right now. He grabs his keys and wallet, pushing past her roughly, before slamming the door behind himself.

When he calms down enough to come home again, she’s asleep on the couch, curled tight. A moment of foolish fondness has him dropping his hand to run through her hair. It’s greasy and needs another trim, he’ll probably have to pay for the haircut, too. Fuck her, he thinks, but fucking her is what’s gotten them in this situation. Figures. Erwin always said he wanted children down the line, and it had been Levi refusing to humour those possibilities, so of fucking _course_ now it’s Levi who’s threatened with reproducing.

“Why do you make me take care of you?” He mutters, drawing back his hand. He taps her cheek, not a full slap but enough to wake her up. In her confused stirring, he tells her, “Hey, let’s get in bed.”

He leads her to his bed, the same mattress that Erwin was sharing with him less than seven weeks ago. Nana crawls over to Erwin’s old side and spoons Levi. She’s warmer than usual.

 

First thing in the morning, Levi walks her to one of those clinics with free pregnancy testing and the reality begins to set in, begins to reignite his initial anger and feed his fear to the flames until they go white hot, hot blue.

At least she’s got the good sense to be terrified. Levi doesn’t know what he’d do if she acted happy about this bullshit.

He distracts himself by working long days and still, it’s beating down the barricade in his brain, it’s ringing on repeat and it’s frustrating the hell outta him. Why the fuck didn’t she tell him? Why the fucking _fuck_ did she let him cum inside her and not say a _goddamn_ thing? She’s still at work when he gets home and he paces, he stews, he’s boiling alive by the time she gets through the front door.

“Why didn’t,” Levi demands, pushing her shoulders square against the door, the force of his shove causing her to stumble back and slam it shut, “you tell me?”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, startled. There’s already tears welling in her eyes. Pitiful bitch always crying at the first signs of trouble. “I’m sorry, Levi.”

“What the fuck is sorry gonna do now?!” He shouts. God, he’s so fucking pissed at her, he just wants to-- what, exactly? What does he want? Does he want to kill her? He could do it. He couldn’t kill himself but he could sure as hell kill her.

“I don’t know,” she whimpers, and only then does he realise that he’s holding her against the door with both hands. But she’s pathetic, she doesn’t try to escape. She puts up with him like Erwin never did.

He’s never _hit_ hit her before. Nothing that’s ever bruised or left marks, nothing that couldn’t be considered playful bickering gone wrong. But he hits her this time and the difference in this blow compared to the others gives them both pause for a moment, needing to process exactly how she’s ended up crumpled on the floor in front of him. And fuck, it felt good. It felt good to take his frustration out on her and she’s been making him feel like shit so _she owes him this._ He lets the frustration drain out of him until he’s exhausted.

 

Neither of them know how to act the next morning. There’s no bruising on her face, so she goes down to the store to get his cigarettes without him asking, the act showing him that she has no intention of leaving. Good. This whole thing is her fault, anyway. She can’t just run from the problems she creates.

He’s smoking on the balcony when she comes back. She passes him the carton from the plastic bag and he can see a box of pads trying to hide under a bag of chips.

“What you need those for?” He grumbles.

He can tell he’s upset her because her eyes begin to well up and Levi sighs. He’s too tired to deal with anymore bullshit right now. Smacking the new pack to his palm, he’s content to ignore her until she peeps up, “My period came.”

His rhythm staggers at the admission and he shrugs it off with, “Good.”

But they both know why she’s bleeding.

 

Since he didn’t have to pay for an expensive abortion, Levi makes it up to her by paying for an IUD. He’s lucky that she’s got no insurance so she can get it cheap thanks to government incentives. She’s been withdrawn for the last couple weeks but she’s not making any moves to leave the apartment except to go to work, so Levi rides out her little mood thing and finds relief in the fact that she’s not nagging him right now.

 

The first time they fuck again, she cries but doesn’t say no. Levi holds her tear-streaked face between his hands and thinks she looks _really_ fucking good, crying like that while he’s inside her. Crying _because_ of him.

But she’s been pulling away from him and he’s determined to change his habits. When Erwin pulled away, Levi would always push that much harder, would make Erwin _prove_ that he wanted to be with him. He can’t do that with Nana. He’s got to keep her close because he’ll die if even she leaves him, too. If she goes, there won’t be anyone to intervene when he tries to kill himself and he doesn’t really want to die. He’s gotta keep her.

She’s making little whimpering sounds beneath him and he used to not give a fuck, but tonight, holding her face, he pauses, waiting until her eyes open so he can ask, “Does it hurt?”

Shyly, she swallows and nods. Knowing that he’s hurting her kinda turns him on, but he should stop, at least for a little bit. What happened is heavy between them. He’ll fuck it up and she’ll abandon him, too, if he doesn’t at least pretend to care about her a little more than he usually shows. Levi pulls out from her and his cock smears pink between them but he ignores that as he rolls over to spoon her.

It’s quiet at first, but her sniffles increase and tears begin to collect on the pillow and reach his arm. Before long, she’s silently sobbing, and he squeezes.

“It’s better this way,” he murmurs, kissing between her shoulder blades. It’s easier for him. It’s not like they were gonna keep it. From day one, they both knew it had to go, but the issue of paying for a medical procedure was difficult to promise. In the end, what he did was fine because it got them to the intended result: she’s not pregnant. That’s what matters. That’s what he wants her to think, too. Why does she have to get emotional about this shit? He fixed it. He fixed the problem she created. Can’t she just suck it up and move the fuck on?

Regardless, Levi keeps his arms around her until she cries herself to sleep, and then he gets up and goes to wash his dick.

 

Somehow, they make rent between just the two of them. Somehow, they settle into a new routine and she stops pulling away quite so much when Levi starts showing her that he cares about her. Somehow, he tries to keep her.

Her birthday comes, the first since he’s known her, the first of many that she promises to stick around for. He wants to mark that promise with something special. As he’s breaking the hymen of her skin with a tattoo on her forearm, he’s caught with the _sweet_ reverie of Erwin gifting him inks and the _bitter_ realisation that he’s now doing the same on her. He can’t replace Erwin with her. He can’t, because she’s not Erwin, but she’s _not Erwin_ and he’s gonna try and keep her.

They go out and get drunk at an obnoxious club she likes and sober up at a questionable dive that looks like it’ll fail a health inspection. Levi would never eat here, but Nana drags him along, smiling, telling him that if he gets food poisoning, she’ll take care of him. It’s like what happened between them is tucked quietly in a corner and doesn’t hurt her anymore. Sitting on the curb, eating greasy food, watching cars putter by, Levi smokes and pulls her in and kisses her ear. Absentmindedly, he thinks he should pierce these next. Would she let him keep using her body like that? He pushes the thought away to ponder it later.

“Hey,” he coos, less inebriated than her, probably barely buzzed. He didn’t drink nearly as much, and his tolerance is much higher. She’s never been drunk before tonight. Seems like Levi’s collecting all her virginities like trophies and that’ll definitely ruin her for anyone else. He doesn’t mind that. He doesn’t mind being the only one that wants her if that keeps her right here. “Nana.”

She hums, nuzzling into his shoulder affectionately.

“Hey,” he coos again, nudging her up but she refuses to move. He even blows smoke on her and she stays right there, movements rhythmic. “Hey, you know I love you, right?”

She doesn’t stop rubbing her nose into him as she returns, “Do you _really_ mean that?”

“I mean it.” Levi shrugs to shake her off and catches her before she tumbles into the pavement. Dizzily, she looks up at him. He exhales and then kisses her properly, mouth on mouth, eyes open and staring into hers. Grey into blue but a different blue. Blue nonetheless. Against her lips, he repeats, nicotine sweet, “I love you.”

“I think I’ve loved you a long time,” Nana smiles up at him, so open, so stupid, so drunk. She closes her blue eyes and leans her head back, moon bathing. She whispers, “It’s nice not to be alone anymore.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> i think there's one more fic that details the transition to where levi and nana end up in their relationship in blue (stay). hopefully it comes soon. thank you for reading.


End file.
